BBC: Could X go bankrupt under Elon Musk?. “For a company he bought for $44bn (£35bn) last year, bankruptcy might sound unthinkable. But it is possible. To understand why, you have to look at how reliant X is on advertising revenue – and why advertisers are not coming back.” Nice overview.
Hollywood Reporter: Linda Yaccarino’s Very Unmerry X Mess. “By now, just a few months later, the former head of advertising at NBCUniversal has become a lightning rod for rage arising from Musk’s erratic, impulsive and, in many cases, repulsive behavior, even as he has made it all but impossible for her to fulfill the mission of making Twitter an alluring place for advertisers. Through it all, Yaccarino has generally presented herself as oblivious to Musk’s conduct and its impact on the company that she at least nominally leads — behavior so maddening that she has been dragged on the very platform she supposedly runs.”
The Guardian: X struggling to win advertisers back after Elon Musk’s profane outburst. “Major advertisers like Disney, IBM and Apple are still withholding ad dollars from Elon Musk’s X two weeks after its owner endorsed an antisemitic tweet and two days after he launched an expletive-laden tirade to describe his feelings about the pull back. Marketing agencies are pulling back from it as well. In response, X has said it plans to attract smaller and medium-sized businesses to prop up its income.”
Reuters: Walmart says it is not advertising on social platform X. “Walmart said on Friday it is not advertising on social media platform X, one of the latest brands to say it has dropped the Elon Musk-owned site. ‘We aren’t advertising on X as we’ve found other platforms to better reach our customers,’ a Walmart spokesperson said.”
Irish Independent: Dublin riots: Elon Musk’s X did not take down ‘vile messages’ despite Garda requests, Justice Minister Helen McEntee says . “Helen McEntee says X, formerly Twitter, did not cooperate with Gardaí in taking down ‘vile messages’ last Thursday. A detective at Store Street last Saturday told Minister McEntee that An Garda Síochána had been engaging in real time with social media companies to seek the removal of hate messages and those relating to incitement to violence…. ‘They [other companies] were taking down their vile messages. X were not. They did not engage. They did not fulfil their own customer standards,’ she said.”
The Globe and Mail: Google ads for Canadian brands found on Russian adult web sites. “Ads for the Disney+ channel, including The Little Mermaid movie, were placed on an Italian porn website, whose name translates as ‘hamster porn.’ Adalytics found a recruitment ad for the FBI on the explicit Italian site as well as on an Iranian steel company’s website, which may be covered by U.S. sanctions. A report by the advertising research company also found ads for vodka, beer and alcoholic cocktails placed on search engines designed for children.”
CNN: Major brands are not only pausing ads on Elon Musk’s X. They’re stepping away from the platform altogether. “The blackout on X extends beyond these companies’ corporate accounts, in some cases. For instance, the most high profile accounts affiliated with Disney have gone dark on X, such as @StarWars, @Pixar, and @MarvelStudios, which were previously posting multiple times a day on the platform to their millions of followers. Instead, these brands have switched over to the Meta-owned rival Threads, where they have started actively posting.”
The Atlantic: Substack Has a Nazi Problem. “The newsletter-hosting site Substack advertises itself as the last, best hope for civility on the internet—and aspires to a bigger role in politics in 2024. But just beneath the surface, the platform has become a home and propagator of white supremacy and anti-Semitism. Substack has not only been hosting writers who post overtly Nazi rhetoric on the platform; it profits from many of them.”
Washington Post: Elon Musk boosts Pizzagate conspiracy theory that led to D.C. gunfire. (This link goes to a gift article.) “Elon Musk voiced support Tuesday for Pizzagate, the long-debunked conspiracy theory that led a man to fire a rifle inside a Washington, D.C., restaurant in 2016. The far-right theory, a predecessor to QAnon, alleged that the Clintons and Democratic Party leaders ran a secret satanic child sex ring in a D.C. pizzeria known as Comet Ping Pong…. After this story was published, a Washington Post spokesperson said the company had made the decision to pause its advertising on X.”
ABC News: Paris mayor says she’s quitting Elon Musk’s ‘global sewer’ platform X. “The mayor of future Olympic host city Paris says she is quitting X, accusing Elon Musk ‘s platform previously known as Twitter of spreading disinformation and hatred and of becoming a ‘gigantic global sewer’ that is toxic for democracy and constructive debate.”
The Conversation: Queer archives preserve activist history and provide strategies to counter hate . “Since 2020, I have been helping to build a 2SLGBTQ+ Community Archive in Hamilton, Ont. My students and I are often amazed at just how long 2SLGBTQ+ communities have been resisting very similar kinds of backlash, hate and violence to what we’re seeing today. Anyone concerned about 2SLGBTQ+ struggles today can learn from the history of resistance and activism preserved in these archives.”
New York Times: X May Lose Up to $75 Million in Revenue as More Advertisers Pull Out. “Internal documents viewed by The New York Times this week show that the company is in a more difficult position than previously known and that concerns about Mr. Musk and the platform have spread far beyond companies including IBM, Apple and Disney, which paused their advertising campaigns on X last week. The documents list more than 200 ad units of companies from the likes of Airbnb, Amazon, Coca-Cola and Microsoft, many of which have halted or are considering pausing their ads on the social network.”
CNN: Elon Musk is now boosting the ‘Pizzagate’ conspiracy theory. “Elon Musk on Monday boosted the dangerous, years-old ‘Pizzagate’ conspiracy theory in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, just days after being roundly criticized and facing an advertiser exodus following his embrace of an antisemitic conspiracy theory.”
The Guardian: X sues watchdog group Media Matters after report on ads next to Nazi posts. “Social media platform X on Monday sued media watchdog group Media Matters, alleging the organization defamed the platform after it published a report that said ads for major brands had appeared next to posts touting Nazism.”
Jambands: Neil Young Leaves X Following Musk’s Antisemitic Sentiments. “Two years after Neil Young took his music off Spotify following COVID-19 vaccine misinformation by Joe Rogan on the platform, the artist has once again used his absence from a digital platform as a form of protest, this time stepping off X due to Elon Musk’s antisemitic sentiments.”
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